In recent years, surgery has markedly advanced through the performance of laparoscopic and endoscopic surgical procedures. Endoscopic procedures are performed through natural orifices, whereas laparoscopic surgical procedures are often accomplished through an access port such as a trocar assembly, which is a surgical instrument used to puncture a body cavity. The trocar typically contains a sharpened obturator tip and a trocar tube or cannula. The trocar cannula is inserted into the skin to access the body cavity, by using the obturator tip to penetrate the skin. After penetration, the obturator is removed and the trocar cannula remains in the body.
During many surgical procedures, a surgeon will have to close or ligate various blood vessels, ducts, and other tissues before severing them in order to prevent excessive bleeding, and to reduce the risk of other complications to the patient. It is also sometimes necessary to transect a vessel, duct, or organ by cutting and then sealing both ends of the vessel, duct, or organ using an instrument such as a linear cutter/stapler.
One surgical instrument that is commonly used endoscopically or laparoscopically ligate a vessel, duct, or organ is a surgical clip applier for ligating a blood vessel, a duct, shunt, or a portion of body tissue during surgery. Clip appliers typically have a handle with an elongate shaft having a pair of movable opposed jaws formed on an end thereof for holding and forming a ligation clip therebetween. The jaws are positioned around the vessel and the clip is secured to the vessel via mechanical deformation caused by closing of the jaws.
One drawback associated with some current clips used for ligating vessels is that the legs of the clip tend to separate to some extent following release from a clip applier. This phenomenon is called duck-billing. Duck-billing can result in insufficient ligation of a vessel, thus leading to excessive blood loss and/or unnecessary damage to the vessel. Further, some ligation clips are often difficult to advance into the jaws of a clip applier because of resistance between the tissue disposed between the jaws and the gripping features on the clip legs.
Despite existing technologies, there remains a need for improved surgical clip appliers, clips, and methods used for ligating and transecting tissue, such as blood vessels, other ducts, and the like.